“Excuse me,” I managed. “I live here, and I didn’t hire anyone to sand the floors.”
“Oh,” said the smaller one, I assumed this was Andy or whatever his name was. “Well, we got a prepaid order to do it, and that nice lady who lives in the cottage was expecting us. Anyway, we’re almost done, and we’ll be back to finish up and start the staining tomorrow. You just have to approve the color. Do you have somewhere you can stay during that time? You won’t be able to walk on the floors for about three days.”
“What?” I was totally confused.
Jazz came up and stood next to me. Apparently, she was the only one thinking clearly because she asked to see the invoice.
They maneuvered the machinery down the stairs to their van, with Andy trying valiantly to ignore my sheer outfit. I imagined they weren’t greeted by a girl in a bikini everyday, but I was way past caring. The one named Chuck rummaged around in the front seat and emerged with a clipboard.
“It wasn’t Mrs. Weaton surely? She’s on social security,” Jazz wondered aloud.
Me? I had a sneaking and sinking suspicion about what was going on, and I didn’t like it one bit. It was confirmed when Chuck handed me the pink billing slip with a California address on it under the name of Katherine Lyons. I didn’t need to be a genius to figure that one out. Then my eyes glanced down at the totals.
“Holy shit!”
Jazz grabbed it from me. “Holy shit, is right. Are you coating the floor with diamonds?” She aimed at Chuck. “And who the hell is Katherine Lyons?”
“Jack’s assistant, I assume,” I informed her. “Her name is Katie.” I was absolutely fuming and stunned all at the same time. Why would Jack do this? He knew I wouldn’t be able to pay him back. But I would, of course, if I spent my whole life doing it. So much for erasing him from my memory. Even if that had been possible, it was certain to be delayed by a few decades now. I looked back at the invoice and saw a huge chunk of the cost had gone to the fancy dustless sanding process and floor repair. Presumably already done. Great.
Chuck just stood there, a little confused, scratching his head.
“You can’t continue. You’ll have to issue a refund for the parts you haven’t done yet,” I told him.
“No can do. It was a package deal. Ain’t no way to divvy that up without you paying more for the part we already done.” He rocked on his heels.
My stomach sank.
“You can take it up with my manager,” he offered at my crestfallen expression. Pulling a pencil from behind his ear, he scrawled a number down on the bottom of the invoice.
“I will. Please don’t come again until this is sorted out.”
He walked away shaking his head.
I stomped up the porch stairs with Jazz on my tail. For once, she was at a loss for words as well. We walked into the house. Neither of us said anything as we moved silently from empty room to empty room, taking in the sight of the smooth bare floors.
All the furniture had been moved out of the way, some out onto the back porch. Even the stairs had been sanded. It was beautiful. It was going to be beautiful. My eyes were teary. It made me madder. When we got to Nana’s room, it too was stuffed with some furniture from downstairs. I turned to Jazz.
“I kissed him. We kissed. We talked. We had the most ... amazing day. When I heard your voice, I picked up his phone to bring it inside and accidentally saw a message from her. It said: Thank you for calling me last night, I love you too, thank you for letting me fix this. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, honey.” Jazz pulled me into a huge hug.
I swallowed hard over the lump in my throat. If she said one more thing to comfort me, I knew I was going to lose it. But she always knew the right thing to do.
She stepped away. We weren’t done discussing it, but for now she knew I needed a moment.
“I’m going to get your truck and stop by the package store. We’re going to start on those margaritas a little sooner than anticipated,” she announced and swept down the stairs and out of the house.
I heard her hauling my bike out from the small woodshed as I made my way over to the window in Nana’s room. If you stood on tiptoes you could almost see the ocean. The view from this side of the attic, a floor above this one, was better. On a whim, I headed that way.
As a small child visiting my grandmother, whenever I felt I needed to be alone, I went up to that spot in the attic below the dormer window to hide or read. Nana had allowed me to take a few items up there; seat cushions from a discarded couch, a small rickety wooden plant stand I used as a table, and a reading lamp. Nana had her craft and sewing supplies in the attic as well and after my parents and I moved in with her, we both worked up there on various projects alone or together. Or sometimes I lay in my reading nook for hours engrossed in a book with the sound of her working away on some sewing project behind me.
I climbed the last few stairs and stepped into the crowded space. I walked the length of it, past the two worktables with my unfinished projects, and boxes of tools and books and things from my parents’ move that had never been unpacked. My nook at the end was hidden behind two old gnarly eight-foot doors propped up against the rafters, and behind that I had tacked up old curtains. You might miss it, unless you really looked. That’s how I liked it.
I hadn’t been up here for over a year. I guess I had finally grown out of needing to get away. That was what happened when you were the only one still in a big house with no one left to get away from.
If only I had known then I had such a short amount of time with those I loved, I would never have hidden away.
It was an unrealistic and pointless notion, I knew.
N I N E T E E N
Everything in my little reading nook was just as I had left it. I sank down onto the old brown cushion that was tossed on the dusty wooden floor beneath the window and looked out at the view. There were two or three rays of sun still making it through the thick clouds. They sparkled on the water in the distance. It would be sunset soon.
I pressed my fingers to my lips as I relived Jack’s kisses. My belly fluttered in remembrance. I wondered if any kiss in my life would ever be able to compare to the first feeling of Jack’s mouth against mine.
“Oh, Nana,” I breathed. I missed her terribly. She had always seemed so wise and always knew how to make me feel better. I couldn’t imagine her being okay with me throwing myself at a boy like I had done with Jack, but I knew she was a romantic at heart.
She’d met my grandfather right before he went off to Germany to fight in the Second World War. She once showed me the amazing letters they wrote to each other over the course of four years. You could feel the love pouring off the pages and his worry he wouldn’t make it back to her. With all my grandfather was enduring, he’d worried about her being alone. Never once had he thought she wouldn’t wait for him. They had such loyalty and unshakeable faith in each other. Did people love like that anymore? I’d asked her the same thing at the time. But no matter how hard I thought about it and wracked my brain to remember what she’d told me, as if it would be the one thing that would make me feel better, I couldn’t.
I thought of my mother and father. The truth was I didn’t even know if they’d had a good marriage. I never asked Nana, I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I knew they hadn’t. I did know my parents met when my mom was very young and she got pregnant with Joey and married right away. I couldn’t help the regret I felt wishing I’d paid more attention to my parents, spent more time with them, asked them as much as I could before they were gone.